Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Romania’s former Prime Minister
Adrian Nastase was sentenced to two years in prison by the
Supreme Court, the first jail sentence for a top-ranking
politician in the country.

Nastase, 61, a member of the Social Democratic Party,
together with five other officials, was charged with taking part
in organizing an event to illegally collect money for his
presidential campaign in 2004, a Supreme Court official said in
a live broadcast on TVR television station in Bucharest today.
Nastase, who has denied any wrongdoing, still faces other
corruption charges.

Romania’s Supreme Court found Nastase innocent in December
in another corruption case, where he was charged for bribing
Ioan Melinescu, the former head of the country’s anti-money
laundering agency, to stop a probe into his wife’s bank account,
where he allegedly hid a bribe of about $400,000.

“There is no evidence against me and I will appeal the
court’s decision,” Nastase said in a phone interview to
Realitatea TV, a private television station in Bucharest. “This
is an attempt to keep me away from the political life.”